Grammy winner opens RockDocs

AthFest

Posted: Wednesday, June 24, 2009

By Julie Phillips

He's the only performer at AthFest this year to have an official Grammy under his belt - as far as we know - but Art Rosenbaum is about as unassuming as he can be. He credits the award, after all, to the musicians included on his "Art of Field Recording Vol. 1: Fifty Years of Traditional American Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum," which this year earned the Grammy for Best Historical Album.

The four-disc set contains traditional musicians from across the country singing and playing songs passed down to them by their mommas and daddies, grandparents, aunts, uncles and neighbors. It's true traditional music, the likes of which Rosenbaum and his wife, photographer Margo Newmark Rosenbaum, have been traveling into rural areas and documenting for the better part of 50 years.

Tonight, Art Rosenbaum teams up with Lance Ledbetter, who produced "Art of Field Recording" on his Atlanta-based Dust to Digital label, at Ciné for a special event titled "The Art of Old Time Music."

Among the goodies for the evening: a short sneak-preview of "Sing My Troubles By," a documentary Rosenbaum's son, Neil Rosenbaum, currently is working on about women in Georgia carrying on traditional music.

In addition, Ledbetter will present a full screening of "Desperate Man Blues: Discovering the Roots of American Music," which details the record collection of Frederick, Md., resident Joseph E. Bussard Jr., who likely owns the largest collection of 78 rpm recordings of country, blues, jazz, cajun and gospel music in the world.

Bussard is a stickler in holding fast to the belief that early 20th-century music is the only stuff worth listening to: "He doesn't think much American music amounts to anything," Rosenbaum points out with a bit of a laugh. "He's an interesting guy."

Too bad.

That means Bussard would miss out on hearing the live performance tonight, when Rosenbaum is joined by 92-year-old master fiddler Earl Murphy and Athens transplants Nancy and Charlie Hartness, otherwise known in folk circles as Hawk-Proof Rooster, offering up their wonderful tunes as well.

To round out the music and film, there'll be a selection of posters Rosenbaum, a retired University of Georgia art professor, draws annually for the North Georgia Folk Festival, which he helped found 25 years ago.

Those will include some of Rosenbaum's original charcoal images for the posters, depicting festival performers. Rosenbaum says in addition to the actual posters, there may even be a painting or two in the mix. He's just recently completed one of local band The Corduroy Road he hopes to display.

This isn't the first exhibit of the Folk Fest posters - there was a show about a year ago at North Georgia College - but Rosenbaum says he's happy to see them up in Athens during AthFest - and to get to play some music. "I'm just really looking forward to it," he says.

Rosenbaum also plays at 1:20 p.m. Saturday on the Hull Street Stage of AthFest.

A catered reception with live music - 6-8 p.m., performances by Rosenbaum, Nancy and Charlie Hartness, Earl Murphy and other special guests. Admission: $10 general, $5 with AthFest wristband (includes admission to reception, live music performance and film screening).

Exhibit

North Georgia Folk Festival poster collection - an exhibition of posters highlighting drawings made by Rosenbaum of the various musical performers from the festival from 1984 to the present.